Graphic & Web design blog

Cool Web Design Tricks a Web Developer will Never Tell You

Whether you’re running maintenance, gifts store or real estate company, getting your business online is a must-do for gaining recognition and engaging more clients in. Unfortunately, not all of us are lucky to be web design experts. Hiring a professional web designer dramatically helps you set up a fine web resource that would both draw visitor attention and treat your clients with the most outstanding user experience on the web.

However, before you decide to start looking for a web designer who would help you with promoting your business, there are some tricky things you should learn about just not to be fooled.

Secret #1

Since website development is a one-time experience, unethical web designers try to loop you in as a customer whom they can charge every now and then. However, it shouldn’t be that way. Neither web hosting nor maintenance requires high charges. You can pay as little as $5 for web hosting and get CMS updates toll free. You don’t need to be a coding genius to upgrade the content managing system you’ve selected, as well as applying changes to the content you’ve shared online. All this can be done in a few clicks, especially if you use help and ready-made solutions.

In case you don’t want to burden yourself with site maintenance, you may always hire professional web designer who will do the job for you. Simply make sure that you are dealing with a person who will not charge you for quick and easy job that can be done by a kid.

Secret #2

It should be easily updated. If you want users to come back to your page over and over again, it should feature a constantly updated content block with catchy headlines and informative posts that will engage more visitors in. Even if you have developed a well designed website but it doesn’t feature any interesting data, it’s worth nothing. Content is king, mind that. Even if you develop a simple web design, people will keep coming back thanks to the content part.

Secret #3

Creating a catchy layout is important, but you should always pay special attention to the way it ranks in search results. If people can’t find your site, then what’s the point of setting it up?

Making your site SEO-friendly can affect its appearance and lower its usability. However, it will benefit the amount of traffic driven to your resource. There is plenty of graphic design not usually admitted. For instance, to rank higher in search results you can use hidden text, redirects, stuff it with keywords, and more.

Web developers are trying hard to make people return to your site. It would be great if users find your web resource interesting and have desire to come back and navigate through it. However, as practice shows, people rarely return a second time since they’ve already seen everything your site boasts. It’s advised to better focus on leading new visitors to the page.

Secret #4

Your resource should be remarkable and stand out from the rest. Some designers go too far and stuff websites with too many features, which makes them cluttered and difficult to navigate. Sure enough, you should follow the latest web design trends and update your web resource with something new and catchy, but don’t embellish. Your primary goal should be making it user-friendly, easy-to-follow and simple to navigate, otherwise people will get confused and leave the page looking for a better one.

It’s a rule of thumb that an RSS and email opt-in buttons should be located somewhere on the top of the site, icons can be found in the top left of right corner, etc. Keep stick to the web development basics and bring a few cool features that will make your site unique.

Secret #5

Very often web designers claim they need to spend hours testing how your website runs on different browsers. However, that is just another way of making you pay more for their job. In fact, all they need to do is check out how the website works on Chrome, the dominant browser on the market.

Secret #6

Don’t overuse JavaScript. Some users may have it disabled in their browsers, while others may be running old-fashioned web browsing software. Though using JavaSript you will give your website a more eye-popping look, people simply won’t be able to enjoy it fully because of some technical issues.

Secret #7

If you are staring a business web page, you should pay special attention to your company logo. We’ve already mentioned about its most preferable location at the top of the page, now it’s time to consider the message you want to deliver using it.

What’s the first phrase that comes to your mind what thinking about McDonald’s? I believe that would be “I’m loving it.” Your company logo should be accompanied by an easy-to-remember slogan or tagline, which should be both informative and reveal the goal of your business. Alongside with memorable design, your paged content should stay in viewers’ memory for long as well.

Closing

Always remember that you are the owner of your site, not the web designer whom you hired for building and promoting it. Take control of the state of things. Check out how your website ranks, what users think of it, and, of course, whether it brings profit. If everything is OK and your clients enjoy how the content is organized, the way they can navigate through your resource, get in touch, etc., then you’ve chosen the right person for developing your site. Otherwise, you may always hire professional web designer who will be able to create a design that will win the hearts of your audience at first glance.

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Designer Daily is a place for designers to find inspiration, resources, and thoughts that will be useful to their daily work. It is maintained by Mirko Humbert, a Swiss graphic and web designer who is available for freelance work. More info.